Married Life has the sort of story that can win you over with a simple plot description. A middle aged man is worried that leaving his wife for the new love of his life would be too cruel so he decides to do the merciful thing and kill her instead. Of course such a plot description also begs a lot of questions? Is this a comedy? A suspense thriller? A drama? The answer, to director Ira Sachs credit, is that Married Life is, just as marriage is in real life, all three of these things and more. What could have been a simple morality tale overdrawn with cliché emerges as a complex totally organic look at the nature of true love, disillusionment, and human folly replete with enough emotional touchstones to win a bevy of well deserved acting, writing and directing Awards.
Chris Cooper plays Harry a middle-aged man who has fallen in love with a girl half his age. His problem is his wife Pat played by Patricia Clarkson. Harry and Pat seem like they couldn’t be less suited for each other. He’s a die-hard romantic driven by his emotions, she’s a sexual pragmatist motivated as much or more by physical hungers than the idea of walks in the park or cuddling on the couch. Decades of marriage have left Harry feeling more and more like something is missing and he thinks he’s found it in Kay, a young war widow who appreciates his gifts and friendship but who seems uncertain about everything else. And then there’s Richard played by a marvelously understated and elegant Pierce Brosnan. Richard’s happy for Harry, but one look at Kay is all it takes for him to start plotting. Which is too bad because Harry has figured out what he needs to do. Leaving his wife would only cause a good woman to suffer and Harry cares too much for his wife to do that. Does anybody have a conscience here? The fun is in finding out where everybody resides within the yes and no of that question.
Serious film fans will recognize that the forties time period is somewhat irrelevant here. This story could be told in any time. But Sachs exploits our ideas of forties cinema until we feel carried on a wave of Hitchcockian suspense to an ending that might be pure Cukor or even Capra if it weren’t for the hauntingly noir-like atmosphere that drove us there. How refreshing to see someone using period filmmaking rather than just costumes and lighting to denote time period.
And it can’t be overestimated what a complex world Sachs and company create here. There are so many moments that make us laugh when a simple description would make sure you’d cry. And there are plenty of moments that seem to do everything at once til the story seems like a grace falling onto anyone who has been through the ups and down of a ral long term love.
In case you can’t tell. I loved this movie. Ira Sachs has succeeded in living up to his own words, “it’s like real life but it’s not- it’s a movie” I would add that a good movie is further defined by the fact that it takes us to someplace that is true in its essence- it resonates not just emotionally but in everyway as something that is tethered to eternity in what it has to say. Married Life is just that. Insightful, funny, frightening, and full of breathtaking filmmaking craft.